After Millions Spent, Amazon’s Live-Action ‘Tomb Raider’ Series From Phoebe-Waller Bridge Reportedly “Dead”
Just one week after reports hit the internet claiming that Amazon’s Tomb Raider live-action TV series didn’t yet have a script after six years and “tens of millions” being spent on its development, a new report claims that the with Phoebe Waller-Bridge-penned series is, as one source simply put it, “dead”.
Alison Boshoff from the UK’s The Daily Mail reports that per numerous “sources”, there now seems no hope for Amazon’s take on Lara Croft to actually make it out of the tomb, with two individuals outright declaring that it’s “dead” and “not going ahead”.
Further, Boshoff notes that despite the previous claim by Amazon MGM TV head Vernon Sanders that the series would begin filming in 2025, Dark Phoenix star Sophie Turner, who is said to have previously participated in a screen-test for the role of Lara Croft, has a full filming schedule lined up for the rest of the year – in other words, as put by Boshoff, there are “no signs” that the series is moving forward.
To the surprise of no one, Prime Video offered no comment to The Daily Mail, and neither did writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s representatives.
Admittedly, though her project does not appear to be going forward, the situation does contain one silver-lining for Waller-Bridge herself.
As explained by Boshoff, the Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny star was given a $20 million-a-year “golden handcuffs deal” in 2019 from then Amazon MGM boss Jennifer Salke following the success of Fleabag.
And while this deal did see Waller-Bridge help write the Mr. & Mrs. Smith series (she was also tapped to star, but she quit the overall project in 2021, thus leaving the role to Obi-Wan Kenobi series actor Maya Erskine), this was reportedly the only work she contributed to Amazon before Salke, who left the company on March 25th, both renewed her deal and handed her the reigns to Tomb Raider in 2022.
However, according to Boshoff, this renewal did come with less-lucrative options, with Waller-Bridge being re-upped on a “non-exclusive, first look basis; and for a fraction of the previous sum.”
To this end, per estimates, Waller-Bridge allegedly made around $100 million from these deals – in other words, while a tomb didn’t ever end up getting raided, Amazon sure did.
And to make the financial robbery even worse, the apparent death of the Tomb Raider TV series now throws into question the overall production status of Amazon’s plans to develop a connected media universe based on the franchise.
Back in 2023, The Hollywood Reporter’s Lesley Goldberg reported that Amazon were aiming to make a “connected world” a’la Marvel which would include the live-action series, an upcoming Tomb Raider video game, and a feature film made in partnership with Netflix’s Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft production house dj2 Entertainment.
While Waller-Bridge was not attached to either the video game or film (though early reports did indicate that “she could also be involved in the potential movie”), her series’ apparent cancellation ultimately does not bode well for either project.
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